LONDON: Copper prices rose on Monday after higher consumer spending in China raised hopes of a boost to metals demand in the country.
Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 0.2% at $9,660 a metric ton by 0950 GMT.
Though China’s factory output growth hit a six-month low in May, metals investors focused on the better than expected retail sales.
“You’ve got all these consumer goods; things like air conditioners, washing machines and EVs still booming. As long as people are buying all that stuff, then it’s good for base metals,” said Dan Smith at Commodity Market Analytics.
“We’re in a volatile, but relatively resilient, economic backdrop for the time being.”
The most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose 0.2% to 78,550 yuan ($10,938.89) a ton.
The expectation that U.S. President Donald Trump will impose tariffs on copper - as he has on aluminium and steel – has boosted U.S. copper prices and spurred flows of metal to the U.S. from elsewhere to take advantage of the premium.
U.S. Comex copper futures dipped 0.2% to $4.80 per lb, bringing the Comex premium over LME copper to $927 a ton, down from $969 on Friday.
LME copper inventories dropped by another 7,300 tons to 107,325, data showed on Monday. That was the weakest level in more than a year and down 60% over the past four months.
Also supporting base metals was a slightly weaker dollar, making dollar-priced commodities less expensive for buyers using other currencies.
Escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, however, curbed some of the optimism.
“Geopolitics has new uncertainty with the conflict, and this has raised concern over metals consumption,” said one Beijing-based metals analyst.
Among other metals, LME aluminium was little changed at $2,504 a ton, zinc gained 1.1% to $2,653, lead rose 0.5% to $1,999.50, nickel was up 0.2% at $15,155 and tin gained 0.5% to $32,850.
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